Obedient? Can we want obedience then

To him, or possibly his love desert,

Who formed us from the dust and placed us here

Full to the utmost measure of what bliss

Human desires can seek or apprehend?”

To whom the Angel: “Son of Heaven and Earth,

Attend! That thou art happy, owe to God;

That thou continuest such, owe to thyself,

That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.

This was that caution given thee; be advised.

God made thee perfect, not immutable;

And good he made thee, but to persevere

He left it in thy power; ordained thy will

By nature free, not over-ruled by fate

Inextricable, or strict necessity:

Our voluntary service he requires,

Not our necessitated; such with him

Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how

Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve

Willing or no, who will but what they must

By destiny, and can no other choose?

Myself, and all the angelic host, that stand

In sight of God, enthroned, our happy state

Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds;

On other surety none: Freely we serve,

Because we freely love, as in our will

To love or not; in this we stand or fall:

And some are fallen, to disobedience fallen,

And so from Heaven to deepest Hell; O fall

From what high state of bliss, into what woe!”

To whom our great progenitor: “Thy words

Attentive, and with more delighted ear,

Divine instructor, I have heard, than when

Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills

Aerial music send: Nor knew I not

To be both will and deed created free;

Yet that we never shall forget to love

Our Maker, and obey him whose command

Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts

Assured me, and still assure: Though what thou tellest

Hath passed in Heaven, some doubt within me move,

But more desire to hear, if thou consent,

The full relation, which must needs be strange,

Worthy of sacred silence to be heard;

And we have yet large day, for scarce the sun

Hath finished half his journey, and scarce begins

His other half in the great zone of Heaven.”

Thus Adam made request; and Raphael,

After short pause assenting, thus began:

“High matter thou enjoinest me, O prime of men,

Sad task and hard: For how shall I relate

To human sense the invisible exploits

Of warring Spirits? how, without remorse,

The ruin of so many glorious once

And perfect while they stood? how last unfold

The secrets of another world, perhaps

Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good

This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach

Of human sense, I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporal forms,

As may express them best; though what if Earth

Be but a shadow of Heaven, and things therein

Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

As yet this world was not, and Chaos wild

Reigned where these Heavens now roll, where Earth now rests